2008 Looks Darker

February, 2008 Looks Darker: you may not have seen the inflation numbers, which were at a 17-year high. This is not good news ... In Monday’s Taking Stock column, I gave the reasons why this year’s presidential election won’t give a positive bump. The forecasters at ISS were expecting the election to drive the economy like it has always done in the past. I am definitely in the minority … So, the storms will continue to blow in. — I had no concept of just how right I was in seeing dark times ahead. In a few months the economy would enter the Great Recession. — Dan

Samsung’s strategy behind ramping spending into a downturn … A cost advantage is the only unassailable market position…  It is important to realize that this is not about short-term profitability. It is about bleeding the competition out so they can’t come back in the upturn when prices will rise and you can make your money then. — Samsung was headed to even greater glory. And note how this bit of history is rhyming with China today. — Dan

One Atom Short of a Gate Dielectric . . . In the beginning, Noyce, Moore, and six others created semiconductor manufacturing from the chaos of Shockley. In their infinitive wisdom, they brought forth two parts: a Front End and a Back End and everything became peaceful in the garden of chip making. One day, silicon eons later, CMP whispered sweetly in the Front End’s ear as it looked upon the Back End, “I’ll be your Back End.” Jealousy ensued. So the Front End gave birth to its own Back End, creating many layers of interconnection. They infested the Back End with parasitics. Then the Back End created its own Front End so as not to be out done by the Front End. The Back End created many layers of redistribution layers to exterminate the parasitics thrust upon it by the Front End. And in this way the chaos wrought by the Front End was brought into order by the Back End. — The Book of Dan, Silicon Genesis